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As we get ready for Passover, here are a couple of teachings that Rabbi Pont recently offered to his congregation at Marlboro Jewish Center!
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Shalom, I am Rabbi Michael Punt, and this is for the love of Judaism special Passover Bonus Edition. That's right, just a very brief episode. I have for you today two short teachings to get you ready for your Seder. One I presented at a Bat Mitzvah about the fourth child at the Seder. And then another one is about why do we have three matzot on the Seder table? Enjoy. I'd like to share a thought with you about the fourth child, the Sheeno Yodeali Shool, the one who doesn't even know how to ask a question. A rabbi named Mark Angel wrote about this child, and he wrote that this child won't ask a question because she's afraid of making a mistake. She's afraid of being ridiculed, of being made fun of. And so she lacks confidence, and therefore she just keeps quiet. His advice is that the parent of this child should encourage her to find her voice. And I was thinking about this because there are a lot of people in the world who lack confidence, who are scared of making a mistake, who don't want to be made fun of, and so they just stay in the background. And they never fully discover their voice. And so the whole world is really lacking because we don't have their wisdom. They're not contributing to make the world better. And so all of us, it is our job to help those people find their voice and to help them to feel confident, to remind them that they have something to share, that they are special, and that we need them to contribute. Harper, I was thinking of this about you specifically because of your work at the friendship circle. In the work you do there, you are helping those kids to feel confident, to find their voice. And someone like you who is confident, sassy in the life of the party, it's so important for you to help other people feel the same way, as energetic and lively as you do. And I would say the same is true for all of us. All of us who feel good about ourselves, who have confidence, we need to help that fourth child out there to feel that same confidence to help them find their voice. That's what this teaching about the fourth child is telling us, all of us, to help everyone who might be shy or unsure of themselves, to make sure they can express themselves. And so, Harper, when you show people kindness, it inspires them to share their goodness with the world. And that everyone, everyone should contribute to help to make this world a better place. That's the lesson of the fourth child. Shabbat Shalom. Passover is coming. Woohoo! Yes. Uh we all know, or you may know, if you don't, I'll tell you, that on your Seder table, you're supposed to have three matzots, right? Three matzots. Why do we have to have three matzots? Well, there is a halachic reason, a Jewish legal reason, that two of the matzots are like you're like how you're supposed to have two chalot on Shabbat. And then the third one is a loaf, quote unquote, that is special, specific for the Passover holiday. So two are for any Shabbat or holiday, any biblical holiday, and then one is specifically for Passover. But I want to suggest another reason why we should have three matzot. And the three matzot are symbolic of moments in time. The bottom matzah represents the past. The top matzah represents the future. So then the middle matza represents what? The present. And what do we do with the middle matza? We break it. So symbolically and spiritually, if you'll go along with this little Devar Torah, the middle matzah that represents the present is a reminder to all of us that the present is broken. This world, if you look at it in many ways, this world is broken. We have a lot of crises and challenges. And by the way, with the middle matzah, we break it, and with the bigger piece, we take it and hide it. The bigger piece becomes what? The Afikomen, that's right. And later in the Seder, we have to go and search for the Afikomen. And when we find it, we take the broken matzah and we bring it back together. And spiritually, this represents the whole Jewish mission in the world. Because our mission is to partner with God and take the brokenness of the world and bring it back together to make this world whole. That is our responsibility as human beings. And specifically, the Torah commands us to do this as Jews. It would be easy to look at the world and the challenges and to think, oh, that they're just forget it. I mean, there's nothing we're going to be able to do to fix this. That is not the Jewish way. The Jewish way is to never give up hope, to always know that every good thing that we do helps to bring the world a little bit closer and helps to make the world a little bit less broken. Every kind act, every mitzvah that we do helps to make the world less broken. So we're always in search of that afikomen so we can make the world whole and not broken. So I hope that, if I may be so bold, I hope that you'll take this idea to your satyrs on Saturday night and really discuss it. In what ways is this world broken? And what can you do? What can each of us do? And what can we as a community do to take that brokenness and help to make it a little bit more whole? If we all leave our Seder tables with a plan to do that, this world is going to be in much better shape than it was before Pesach. So that's all for this episode. Everyone, just have a great Passover. Aziz and Pesach have, as we say, a sweet holiday. Peace out.
